The Times Square bomber flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy.

The jaw-dropping court testimony by Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, singlehandedly undermines Obama administration efforts to ignore the dangers of Islamism.

Shahzad’s statements stand out because jihadis, when facing legal charges, typically save their skin by pleading not guilty or plea bargaining.

Consider a few examples:• Naveed Haq, who assaulted the Jewish federation building in Seattle, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

• Lee Malvo, one of the Beltway Snipers, explained that “one reason for the shootings was that white people had tried to harm Louis Farrakhan.” His partner John Allen Muhammad claimed his innocence to the death chamber.

• Hasan Akbar killed two fellow American soldiers as they slept in a military compound, then told the court: “I want to apologize for the attack that occurred. I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness.”

• Mohammed Taheri-azar, who tried to kill students on the University of North Carolina by running over them in a car, and issued a series of jihadi rants against the US, later experienced a change of heart, announced he was “very sorry” for the crimes and asked for release so he could “reestablish myself as a good, caring and productive member of society” in California.

THESE EFFORTS fit a broader pattern of Islamist mendacity; rarely does a jihadi stand on principle.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 9/11’s would-be 20th hijacker, came close: His court proceedings began with his refusing to enter a plea (which the presiding judge translated into “not guilty”) and then pleading guilty to all charges.

Shahzad, 30, acted in an exceptional manner during his appearance in a New York City federal court on June 21. His answers to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum’s many questions (“And where was the bomb?” “What did you do with the gun?”) offered a dizzying mix of deference and contempt.

On the one hand, he politely, calmly, patiently, fully and informatively described his actions. On the other, he in the same voice justified his attempt at cold-blooded mass murder.

The judge asked Shahzad after he announced an intent to plead guilty to all 10 counts of his indictment: “Why do you want to plead guilty?” A reasonable question given the near certainty that guilty pleas will keep him in jail for long years. He replied forthrightly: I want to plead guilty and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times forward because – until the hour the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government – we will be attacking [the] US, and I plead guilty to that.”

Shahzad insisted on portraying himself as replying to American actions: “I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing [of] the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attacks,” adding that “we Muslims are one community.”

Nor was that all; he flatly asserted that his goal had been to damage buildings and “injure people or kill people” because “one has to understand where I’m coming from, because... I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier.”

WHEN CEDARBAUM pointed out that pedestrians in Times Square during the early evening of May 1 were not attacking Muslims, Shahzad replied: “Well, the [American] people select the government. We consider them all the same.”

His comment reflects not just that American citizens are responsible for their democratically elected government, but also the Islamist view that, by definition, infidels cannot be innocent.

However abhorrent, this tirade does have the virtue of truthfulness. Shahzad’s willingness to express his Islamic purposes and spend long years in jail for them flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy, preferring such lame formulations as “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters.”

Americans – as well as Westerners generally, all non- Muslims and anti-Islamist Muslims – should listen to the bald declaration by Faisal Shahzad and accept the painful fact that Islamist anger and aspirations truly do motivate their terrorist enemies.

A federal appeals court today tossed out the death sentence against a cop-killer convicted in the execution-style murders of two undercover detectives on Staten Island during a gun buy-and-bust operation in 2003.

In a split decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prosecutors violated Ronell Wilson's constitutional rights by attacking his claims of remorse during the penalty phase of his trial for the cold-blooded killings of Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin.

"These arguments were potent -- no juror found that Wilson accepted responsibility or showed remorse, and every juror found that Wilson presented a risk of future dangerousness," Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote for the 2-to-1 majority.

"On these facts, it is hard to see how the government can prove that these errors were harmless. Indeed, the government’s emphasis on these arguments during summation suggests they were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Debra Ann Livingston said it was "entirely proper" for the prosecution to question the credibility of Wilson's unsworn apology "because it came only when Wilson faced punishment for his crime."

"It is both natural and irresistible for a jury, in evaluating the sincerity of a statement of contrition, to note when it comes only at the point a defendant is seeking to avoid the maximum penalty and when it is utterly devoid of corroboration," she wrote.

All three judges upheld Wilson's conviction, and he was ordered back to court for a new penalty phase.

A spokesman said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch "will carefully review this decision and consider options."

Wilson's defense lawyers didn't immediately return calls for comment.

A NYPD spokesman said Commissioner Raymond Kelly "believes that the murder of a police officer is an attack on society itself and should be punished with the death penalty."

"There were no circumstances to suggest otherwise in the murders of Detectives Andrews and Nemorin, which were beyond heinous, cold-blooded executions."

The rigs, located in Monagas, Anzoategui and Zulia states, will be taken over by state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the official news agency AVN said.

PDVSA had asked the legislature controlled by supporters of leftist President Hugo Chavez to take over the rigs after the US firm declined to negotiate a new service contract, unlike 32 other foreign firms.

The oil giant is South America's top oil producer.

Since 2007 Caracas has nationalized companies in industries from oil to utilities, to telecoms, cement, steel and banking.

US accepts international assistance for Gulf spill

US accepts international assistance in dealing with massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.

The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.

More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.

Top union leader Thomas Balanoff said he was at dinner the night before the November Presidential election when he got a call that was blocked.So he didn't take it.

Later he listened to his messages: "I walked outside, listened to it and it was from President Obama," Balanoff said.

"Tom, this is Barack, give me a call," the soon-to-be President-Elect said on the message.

After Balanoff sent word through an Obama aide to call him back, Obama returned his call later that night.

"Tom, i want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," Obama told him.Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.Obama said he wasn't publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill."I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria," Balanoff said Obama told him. "I said: 'thank you, I'm going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."

Balanoff then described a Nov. 6, 2008 meeting he had with Rod Blagojevich to recommend Valerie Jarrett for Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Blagojevich responded that he was in "active discussions" with the Madigans about appointing Lisa Madigan and was holding out for a legislative package with the House speaker.

"I said that could be months. He said, 'Yeah'. I said Valerie Jarrett, I don't believe she has that kind of time," Balanoff testified.

Blago then turned the conversation to a cabinet position, Balanoff said.

"He said, 'You know, I love being governor, but my real passion is health care,'" and then he asked about the Health and Human Services cabinet post.

"I told him that's not going to happen," Balanoff said. "He said, "Is that because of all the investigations around me?"

Dr. Richard L. Rubinstein, Yale fellow, "Distinguished Professor of the Year", and Harvard Phd, states that president Obama's intention is to "correct the historical mistake of the creation of the state of Israel." Dr. Rubenstein states that president Obama due to his family heritage is extremely pro Muslim - to the point of "wanting to see the destruction of Israel."

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Executives from oil and gas companies on Monday concluded an hour-long meeting with U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar without securing promises from the government to lift a deepwater-drilling moratorium imposed after a disastrous BP PLC (BP) oil spill…

“Numerous operators told Secretary Salazar that they were in the final stages of moving rigs, deepwater rigs out of the Gulf of Mexico and to West Africa and the Middle East,” according to a person familiar with the matter. “We were frankly disappointed at the lack of serious attention that was paid by the Department of the Interior on the horrible economic impact that the Department of Interior’s policies are having on the industry and on communities along the Gulf Coast.”

More then the embarrassment of another Obama appointee not be able to follow the rules everyone else has to follow, or just plain lying what is a union political director doing in the WH? The SEIU recently retired President Andy Stern is a Communist, so what are we to make of this appointment.

President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House.

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House.

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Gaspard, who made $172,200 in 2009, has from $35,000 to $80,000 in credit card debt and student loans, according to his financial disclosures.

This SEIU payout was first raised in early June by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top GOP lawmaker on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He sent a letter to the White House asking for information about the payment. They have yet to respond.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Dozens of masked youths are clashing with police at a union protest in Athens during a general strike against the cash-strapped government's planned pension and labor reforms.

Riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse troublemakers who threw chunks of marble smashed off a metro station entrance and set rubbish bins on fire.

No injuries, arrests or major damage to property were immediately reported

Tuesday's violence came as some 10,000 people took part in a demonstration organized by the country's two main labor unions and fringe left-wing groups. A separate march by some 5,000-6,000 members of the Communist Party-backed PAME union ended peacefully.

The strike disrupted public transport and left hospitals operating on emergency staff.

"Finally she got away. Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her "to just suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming.""

Monday, June 28, 2010

I have a former student who has found the perfect job. She’s working with troubled youths in a faith-based program that allows her to finally put her psychology degree to use – a full eight years after she graduated from college. She likes the job, but she called my office recently to vent about a boy who suffers from Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD).

I have a B.A. and an M.S. in psychology. But I must confess that I needed some explanation of ODD because it wasn’t yet a disorder when I studied psychology back in the 1980s. So I asked my former student simply to describe the behavior of the boy with ODD. The conversation went something like this:

Erica (not real name): He is constantly pitching a fit over nothing – or nearly nothing. He argues with everything I say and there is no such thing as a rule he does not question.

Me: So, in other words, the boy is a jerk.

Erica: No, he has ODD. I mean, he actively defies and refuses to comply with every request made by every adult. I mean that literally. And he does it just to annoy us and to upset us. But he won’t take responsibility for his behavior or his mistakes. It’s never his fault.

Me: So, in other words, the boy is a jerk.

Erica: No, I said he has ODD. He’s also easily annoyed by other people. And he’s full of resentment and anger.

Me: So, in other words, the boy is a jerk.

Erica: No, there’s more to it than that. I know he has ODD because of the hateful words he uses when he’s upset. He is just so spiteful and so bent on gaining revenge against anyone he thinks has wronged him.

Me: So, in other words, the boy is a jerk.

Erica: I guess you’re right. He is a jerk.

The exchange with Erica was funny and we both eventually laughed about the absurdity of the whole idea of ODD. But the current trend towards viewing all undesirable behavior as symptomatic of a disorder to be treated, as opposed to a wrong to be punished, is no laughing matter.

There are a number of problems associated with redefining all undesirable forms of behavior as “disorders” to be cured. Among them is the unanticipated consequence of depriving man of his humanity. If a man is merely a victim of some disease then he cannot really be considered evil. If he has no potential to be evil, he has no potential to be good.

C.S. Lewis pointed out another unanticipated consequence of our rush to treat, rather than punish, people who do evil things. He noted that the same intellectuals who determine when an illness has set in will also determine when that illness has dissipated. And they have a powerful incentive to drag out the entire process. Who among us would not rather take our punishment and be done with it – as opposed to waiting in perpetuity for the official clearance of a doctor?

If you are not at all concerned with what I am saying please consider the history of the 20th Century. Not long after Nietzsche declared that “God is dead” we began to “progress” beyond the concepts of good and evil. Nietzsche predicted that we were moving into dangerous territory. He also predicted that the 20th Century would be our bloodiest. Even a broken philosopher is right twice a day.

During the 20th Century, Theodor Adorno initiated a movement towards classifying conservatism as a psychiatric disorder. Long before that, Sigmund Freud had been working hard at the task of classifying religion as a psychiatric disorder.

Today, the effort seems to have spread into the realm of nearly every conceivable form of behavior. It is worth noting that the number of disorders legitimated within the medical profession is directly correlated with the number of defenses legitimated by our legal system.

We must rethink our deference to intellectual busybodies who are in a constant search for complex “problems” in need of “solutions” which require their expertise. Put simply, the principal “problem” with humanity is the human heart. It is inclined towards evil, which must be punished if there is to be any hope for humanity.

Returning to an emphasis on punishing evil, rather than curing disorders, is an idea that has consequences. Among those consequences would be a loss of livelihood for many psychiatrists who need to earn a living. But to do otherwise would result in a loss of humanity for many lost souls in need of redemption.

As is always the case, that which seems to be a “problem” in need of a “solution” is nothing more than a simple trade-off. And where trade-offs are involved, choices between alternative visions of the world are inevitable.

Years ago Groucho Marx proclaimed he wouldn't want to be a member of any organization that would actually admit him. Perhaps Tim Scott, a black Republican from South Carolina who has a good chance of becoming a representative to Congress by winning the general election in November, feels the same way about joining the Black Congressional Caucus. As John Steele Gordon of Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog points out

But assuming Scott is elected, he needn't apply for membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, of course. It's a measure of how little the left in American politics has changed in the last 50 years that the Black Caucus - devoted to race-based politics and victimology - admits only liberal Democratic members.

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah will press U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington this week to take a stronger stance with Israel over stalled peace talks with the Palestinians, analysts and diplomats said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday struck down part of a 2002 law that created a national board that polices auditors of public companies, ruling that it violated the constitutional requirement on the separation of powers among the branches of government.

The high court's ruling on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) could put pressure on Congress to revisit the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law, opening it up for potential changes in the reporting duties of companies.

The court's mixed ruling held that the board violated the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers principle, but also held that the law does not violate the Constitution's appointments clause.

At stake in the case was how corporate America is audited and a key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law adopted in response to the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals early in the decade.

The ruling was a victory for the Free Enterprise Fund and a small Nevada accounting firm, which argued that the law unconstitutionally stripped the president of power to appoint or remove board members or to supervise their activities.

Board members are appointed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and can only be removed by the SEC for cause. The board, set up as a quasi-private agency, has the power to impose rules and to inspect and fine accounting firms.

The board is funded through fees it collects from public companies. It inspects thousands of auditors, including the Big Four accounting firms: Ernst & Young LLP, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche LLP.

The Free Enterprise Fund and the accounting firm sued in 2006. A federal judge and a U.S. appeals court rejected the challenge.

The Supreme Court's majority opinion said the limits on the removal of board members violated the separation of powers requirement.

But the court also held that the unconstitutional provisions can be separated from the rest of the law.

• It would be naughty to ask you about litigation heading for the Supreme Court concerning this: Does Congress have the right, under its enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce, to punish the inactivity of not purchasing health insurance? So, instead answer this harmless hypothetical: If Congress decides that interstate commerce is substantially affected by the costs of obesity, may Congress require obese people to purchase participation in programs such as Weight Watchers? If not, why not?

• The government having decided that Chrysler's survival is an urgent national necessity, could it decide that "Cash for Clunkers" is too indirect a subsidy and insteadmandate that people buy Chrysler products?

• If Congress concludes that ignorance has a substantial impact on interstate commerce, can it constitutionally require students to do three hours of homework nightly? If not, why not?

• Can you name a human endeavor that Congress cannot regulate on the pretense that the endeavor affects interstate commerce? If courts reflexively defer to that congressional pretense, in what sense do we have limited government?

• In Federalist 45, James Madison said: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite." What did the Father of the Constitution not understand about the Constitution? Are you a Madisonian? Does the doctrine of enumerated powers impose any limits on the federal government? Can you cite some things that, because of that doctrine, the federal government has no constitutional power to do?

• Is it constitutional for Arizona to devote state resources to enforcing federal immigration laws?

• Is there anything novel about the Arizona law empowering police officers to act on a "reasonable suspicion" that someone encountered in the performance of the officers' duties might be in the country illegally?

• The Fifth Amendment mandates "just compensation" when government uses its eminent domain power to take private property for "public use." In its 2005 Kelo decision, the court said government can seize property for the "public use" of transferring it to wealthier private interests who will pay more taxes to the government. Do you agree?

• Should proper respect for precedent prevent the court from reversing Kelo? If so, was the court wrong to undo the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregating the races with "separate but equal" facilities is constitutional?

• In 1963, President John Kennedy said Congress should "make a commitment . . . to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law." Was he right?

• In 1964, Sen. Hubert Humphrey, a principal sponsor of that year's Civil Rights Act, denounced the "nightmarish propaganda" that the law would permit preferential treatment of an individual or group because of race or racial "imbalance" in employment. What happened?

• William Voegeli, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, writes: "The astonishingly quick and complete transformation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, from a law requiring all citizens be treated equally to a policy requiring that they be treated unequally, is one of the most audacious bait-and-switch operations in American political history." Discuss.

• In a 2003 case affirming the constitutionality of racial preferences in law school admissions, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said: "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." If you are a sitting justice in 2028, do you expect to conclude that such preferences can no longer survive constitutional scrutiny because they no longer serve a compelling public interest?

• The president is morose about the court's Citizens United decision holding that the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make "no law" abridging freedom of speech, means no laws abridging a corporation's freedom to speak, including nonprofit advocacy corporations such as the National Rifle Association and the Sierra Club. The court called it "censorship" for government "to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear." Do you agree?

• You have noted that the court often considers legislative motives when deciding First Amendment cases. Should the court consider legislators' motives if, in response to Citizens United, they impose new burdens on corporate speech?

•- When incumbent legislators write laws restricting the quantity, content and timing of speech about legislative campaigns, are not their motives presumptively suspect?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

An employee poses with the Vampire Killing Kit at Christie's Auction house in Brompton west London June 7, 2010. The 19th century kit - with later additions - includes a wooden box lined with velvet encasing the essentials once thought necessary to keep vampires at bay, including wooden stakes, a crucifix, vials for holy water, garlic powder, a bible, and a pistol, and is expected to fetch up to £1800 when it comes to auction on June 8.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that a CIA warning that Iran has enough uranium to build two atomic bombs was "worrying," and criticized Tehran's secrecy over its nuclear program.

"This information has to be checked but such information is always worrying and all the more so because the international community does not recognize the Iranian nuclear program as transparent," he told reporters.

Earlier, US spy chief Leon Panetta had said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believes Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two nuclear weapons if it finds a way to further enrich it.

"If this is proved, it would make the situation even more tense," Medvedev said, adding that Russia might need to re-examine its position on the matter.

Russia has traditionally been an ally of Iran, but Medvedev has expressed increasing public concern over its nuclear program, which Washington and other Western capitals fear is on course to build a nuclear weapon.

Despite complaints from the West, Russia is helping build Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. In 2008 Russian energy giant Gazprom signed an agreement with Iran to develop its oil and gas fields.

Russia, which unlike the United States has diplomatic ties with Iran, has in the past been reluctant to impose tough sanctions but backed the latest UN move following Tehran's repeated defiance of orders to halt uranium enrichment.

Quotes from President Obama's books, 'his thoughts ........ in his own words' -

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about her that made me wary, a little too sure of herself, maybe and white..

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself: the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY, and most scary!

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

Fortunately the Sheriffs know and obeyed the law. It is not public knowledge.

In California a judge has just permitted those who are against Prop 8's passage (limiting marriage to a man and a woman) to know the names of the people who signed the petition that got measure on the ballot in the first place. Now why do you think they want that information?

Add to that the Left's push for "card check" which removes the protection of the secret ballot in union organizing efforts and you get a pretty scary picture.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez described Israel on Saturday as a genocidal state that acted as an assassin for the United States, predicting the Middle East nation would one day be "put in its place."

The socialist Chavez is a harsh critic of both Israel and the United States and cut relations with Israel after accusing it of "holocaust" for its 2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"It has become the assassin arm of the United States, no one can doubt it. It is a threat to all of us," Chavez said, during a visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Chavez said he supported a peaceful struggle for the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967.

"The territory will one day return to the Syrian hands," Chavez said. "Of course we want it to be peaceful because we don't want more war."

"But one day the genocidal state of Israel will be put into its place, and let's hope that a really democratic state emerges there, with which we can share a path and ideas."

Chavez did not offer further details of what putting Israel "in its place" would entail.

U.S. attempts to isolate Syria and reshape the Middle East have failed, he said, and Israel was fast losing allies.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Democratic nominee in the Nevadagovernor's race is the son of one of the most powerful politicians in America, but you wouldn't know it by his campaign.

Rory Reid is going to great lengths to keep his distance from his famous father—U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—in an election year when the elder Reid is the anti-incumbent movement's public enemy No. 1.

On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, China has finally rewritten its history of how the conflict began to point the finger of responsibility at North Korea.

EL PASO, Texas - A 15-year-old Mexican boy shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent was among El Paso's most wanted juvenile immigrant smugglers, according to federal arrest records reviewed by the Associated Press.

The records show Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka had been arrested at least four times since 2008 and twice in the same week in February 2009 on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Hernandez was repeatedly arrested along the U.S. side of the border near downtown El Paso, not far from where he was killed, but was never charged with a crime by federal prosecutors...

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.